14 
Irisli Agricultuie. 
upon for years to supply the best blood for the use of Irish 
breeders ; and now Irish breeders are in a position to meet their 
English friends on English ground. This was sh(nvn to be the 
case at the late Royal Show at Wolverhampton, where Lord 
Clermont's very handsome young Berkshire sow, bred in Ireland, 
was awarded the second prize in an excellent class, and was sold 
on the ground, at 40Z., to a Canadian breeder. Lord Clermont 
has taken a leading part, for many years, in breeding Berkshires, 
sparing no expense in procuring the best blood that could be 
obtained, and having the details of management conducted with 
great skill and judgment. 
Poultry. 
This is a department of some importance, more especially to 
small farmers. The Agricultural Returns state that there are 
upwards of eleven million head of poultry of all kinds in Ire- 
land, which may be taken as representing a value of at least 
half a million sterling, irrespective of the produce in eggs, of 
which large quantities are annually exported to Great Britain. 
I do not find, however, in those statistical returns which have 
been published, relating to the commerce of Irish agricul- 
ture, any statement which shows the actual extent of the trade 
in poultry and eggs between Ireland and England, but, as an 
illustration of its extent, it may be stated that the value of the 
weekly exports of fowl from the port of VVaterford alone exceeds 
1000/. Annual fairs are held in different parts chiefly for the 
sale of geese and turkeys. These are purchased from the breeders 
and fattened for market on other farms, or exported direct to 
England to be fed there. The weekly markets held in the 
different towns throughout the country are all well supplied with 
fowls and eggs, which are bought up for exportation ; and in the 
most remote parts, in Connemara for instance, heaps of egg-boxes 
and crates may be seen at the door of every little shop waiting 
to be filled for the English market. At one time previous to that 
great era in the social history of Ireland, " the famine years " 
— 1S4(5 to 1848 — a Connemara woman would have been ashamed 
to let it be known that she sold eggs, but that feeling has become 
extinct since the competition for supplying England has raised 
the value of eggs more than six hundred per cent., compared with 
what it formerly was. The small farmers usually keep their fowls 
in the same house with themselves, where the fowls roost on the 
rafters ; and although this is a system of management which is by 
no means conducive to the comfort of the human inmates, it 
certainly is favourable for their feathered companions, who 
repay it l)y earlier and more regular laving than would be the 
